VATICAN CITY (CNS) — On the eve of meeting Pope Francis, Jean Vanier
spoke about the importance of joy, tenderness and practical resistance
to the "throwaway" culture.

Vanier met Pope Francis at the Vatican March 21 during a trip to Rome to
mark the 50th anniversary of L'Arche, the international federation of
communities he founded where people with and without intellectual
disabilities live and work together.

In an interview published March 20, the Vatican newspaper asked Vanier
about the approach and gestures that the paper said he has in common
with Pope Francis, including the pope's teaching that modern society
treats anyone who is poor, weak or different as "trash or leftovers."

"Feeling guilty about existing and not having a place in the world is a
horrible feeling," Vanier told the Vatican newspaper. Too many of the
L'Arche members, who live in 145 communities in 40 countries, have felt
that way at one time or another.

The L'Arche experience, he said, is about accepting, valuing and loving
people as they are. Those whom the world considers to be healthy, whole
and successful need to learn to open their arms and their minds to
others.

"It's easy to understand that the weak need the strong, but perhaps what
is more difficult is that the strong also need the weak. We need those
who are small and vulnerable," he said. "We need the poor in order to
discover our poverty. Living with people who are wounded, we discover
our own wounds. And, perhaps, accepting the wounds of others, we learn
to accept our own."

Vanier also was asked about his — and the pope's — emphasis on the role of joy in the Christian life.

In his apostolic exhortation, "Evangelii Gaudium" ("The Joy of the
Gospel"), Pope Francis wrote: "There are Christians whose lives seem
like Lent without Easter. I realize of course that joy is not expressed
the same way at all times in life, especially at moments of great
difficulty. Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a
flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is
said and done, we are infinitely loved."

Vanier told the newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, "I don't think the
first form of evangelization is to proclaim Jesus. The first
evangelization consists in offering everyone a place where they can
laugh, dance, celebrate and experience a sense of belonging."

Joy, he said, "comes from feeling you belong to a community, from being
happy together, from no longer being alone. The greatest means of
evangelization we have today is small communities where there are happy,
joyful people who care for one another."

The newspaper also asked Vanier to talk about "tenderness," especially in the gestures of Pope Francis.

"Tenderness is a special gift of the spirit," Vanier said. A touch that
is tender and respectful "offers security, reveals the importance and
sacred value of the other and becomes an exhortation to grow."